Premiere Pro proxy-editing without cineform?

[jmalmsten]

As the title asks... I wonder if there is a free codec/tool to speed up my editing of 1080p PAL HDV footage on my Premiere Pro CS3 residing on a XP-PC?

Now, the thing is... I would like to use a workflow like this:

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1. capture to HDV into a folder called something like "HD-FULL"

2. convert these to some pretty ugly looking low-bandwidth editing friendly files which will be saved in "HD-PROXY"... every file having the same filename as its sister-file in "HD-FULL"

3. edit with the files in the PROXY-folder...

4. review the timings and flow of edits in the files using this ugly looking state

5. repeat step 3 and 4 as needed, while it's going fast and smooth anyways.

6. "LOCK THE PICTURE!" (as it's called in the industry when no more changes are made to the edits... only color-alterations, sound and post-VFX are allowed to be added. and the effects have their own proxies in some form that are cut and timed to perfection already)

7. NOW! I switch these folders names so that the "HD-PROXY" is named "HD-FULL" and vice versa.

8. Do Color Correction.

9. render out the high-quality stuff as fully glorious HD-footage.

10. be happy... smile... get drunk and forget all about the project ever happening.

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Now... what I want from you guys 'n gals are advice on a codec that really frees up my computer from having to juggle around with the long GOP and all that stuff while editing with the proxies... I honestly just want that... I don't care if the resulting quality of the 1080p footage comes down to an ugly mess as long as it goes easier on the processor then HDV while STILL using up the full resolution of 1080HD.

That last sentence is quite crucial for me... since I have been thinking about just converting the files to a low-resolution DV footage but then when I thought about it... it would mean that it would just become smaller inside the preview... I want it to take up the full space so that the resizing of the preview window works as expected. If I scale the proxy footage up, it would mean that when I switch the source-files then everything would be far to big and I would have to go in and edit by edit scale it back down again to 100 percent.

I really miss the ability to work with proxies in After Effects but since I have found NO way of working with HD-proxies in Premiere Pro (even when the PR-material CLEARLY states that it's supported???) I am forced to think along the workflow outlined above. Which is just borrowed in parts from the way I have been reading about how Spielberg works on his effects-heavy pictures in this digital age.

One thing is mandatory in your advise... it should work FASTER than native HDV-editing... as of this writing I have actually not found any codec that allows for faster HD editing than standard HDV-mpeg2 long GOP.

So, what I want is a codec that does 2 things...

1. edits and previews faster than native-HDV while still...
2. using a resolution of 1920x1080 (or anamorphic 1440x1080) for ease of switching and allowing for a black-border-free preview.

In short... I am working on a strategy to do a fullblown HD feature length movie with the computing power I already have (just adding some Disc-space of course)

Oh,,, Did I mention that I want it to be a FREE codec?

[Frank]

What I don't understand is why you are having trouble editing HDV in real-time; The latest version of Premiere should be able to do it, if your computer is up to snuff. Even Premiere Elements 3.0, which I use, can do it. I do have issues with choppy sound, but it's just a monitoring issue, so I live with it.

Personally, I use the m2t files as proxies for the eventual lossless AVIs which I swap in for final mastering.

[jmalmsten]

Yes... Premiere CS3 do have HDV real-time editing. And as it is right now, I only work on projects under the 10 minutes length... but I am aiming at a solution for full feature length work in the near future and already I need to render video time and time again to get a nearly chop-free video... it's this almost-chop-free video that irritates me the most... it seems like no matter how much I render the timeline I never get a full-motion-thorough-experience until after final export-render. This may do in my short tests and other minor projects... but I want to be able to do a feature length video edit with hundreds of cuts and preview it all the way through without any choppy flow...

It's nitpicky... I know... but I find it so hard to estimate the flow of cuts when the video randomly freeze-frames while reviewing the latest changes. The "draft" mode actually seems to demand more horsepower than full resolution by the way and will seldom give smooth playback at all...

my specs are as follows by the way:

AMD athlon64 3500+ at 2.21 gigHz
3gig DDR-ram
Radeon x800GT graphics
WinXP.

[Reeven]

I've never tried it with anything super long, (I still can't even figure out how to properly export in full quality HD with premiere!) but the solution I use to make proxy files is simply use the Adobe Media Encoder, make a smaller MPEG2 file. Edit with that, then simply replace the MPEG2 files with your full quality files and go. I'm not sure when you'd do the color grading with that system, as I do mine in a seperate program, but that's the system I use for proxy files.